


Say Goodbye

by itchyfingers



Series: The Willa and Chris Stories [1]
Category: Chris Pine - Fandom
Genre: Adultery, Alternate Universe, Betrayal, Dave Matthews Band - Freeform, F/M, Snowed In, Songfic, high school sweethearts, reunited, tech genius chris
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-07 21:42:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3184190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itchyfingers/pseuds/itchyfingers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>High school sweethearts run into each other over a decade later at a snowed in airport.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song "Say Goodbye" by Dave Matthews band

Chris walked through the concourse, weaving around the long lines at the gate check-in counters that stretched all the way back into the wide corridor. Snow was already piling up on the runways and when the pilot had welcomed them to JFK he had also congratulated them on being the last plane given clearance to land; all others had been rerouted because of the blizzard coming in. Thankful that his hotel had been booked in advance and a driver was waiting for him, he carefully stepped around an escaping toddler and tried to block out the noise of people trying to reschedule flights or find hotel rooms.

“What do you mean you can’t get me on another flight for four days?”

The familiar voice cut through the chaos like a sunbeam through a cloud and he stopped and turned in a circle until he spotted the head of carrot colored hair that belonged to it. It was cropped short but her fingers ran through it in frustration just like when it had stretched down her back past the hooks of her bra.

“What am I supposed to do for the next four days then?”

He walked up to the woman and leaned against the counter. “Well, we probably can’t manage a road trip because of the weather, but I’m sure we can think of something.”

Her head snapped around towards him. It took her a second to recognize his face; she wasn’t used to him with glasses and a week’s worth of facial hair probably didn’t help either. “Oh my god! Chris!” She hugged him tightly for a moment and then stepped back to look at his face again. She reached to touch him but yanked her hand back before she made contact.

“I’ll take care of her,” he said with a smile to the gate agent and then took the woman’s elbow. “Come with me. I’ll help you get this all sorted out.”

She grabbed her luggage and trailed after him, the sound of the wheels on her suitcase clicking along the floor completely disappearing into the angry buzz of filling the concourse. “How are you going to fix this? Do you have your own plane?”

“Part of one, but that wouldn’t do it.  No one’s going to be able to take off or land for a few days with the storm that’s coming in. But, lucky for you, I’m better than a gate agent.” He led them into a dimly lit bar away from the grey speckled walls and constant warnings not to leave your luggage unattended and sat down at one of the tables. She followed him, looking around for a waiter or someone to scold them for not waiting to be seated, but no one seemed concerned by his behavior so she took the seat across from him and tucked her suitcase under the small table.

Chris pulled out his phone and called his assistant. “Todd, I ran into an old friend here at JFK whose flight got cancelled. Can you find the next available flight to…” he looked at her and raised an eyebrow.

“San Francisco.”

“San Francisco and get her on it?”

“Willa,” he looked at her left hand and saw the diamond ring on it, “what’s your last name now?”

“It’s the same.”

“Willa Holbrook.”

“Call me back when you find something.” He hung up and gestured for a waiter and one magically appeared. “I’ll have a vodka tonic.”

“And the lady?”

“Ummm,” she scratched her forehead a few times, “I’ll just have sparkling water with a wedge of lime.”

“I’ll be right back with your drinks.”

Chris arched an eyebrow at her. “Water?”

“I don’t want to start drinking until I know for sure what I’m doing for the rest of the night.”

“You should spend it with me.”

Her eyes flew open and she fumbled for the handle of her suitcase. “I can’t do that. I’m married.”

Chris clutched her wrist as she stood up. “Not like that. Just to catch up. You’re not going to be able to get a flight out tonight so have dinner with me. It’s been what, over a decade since we’ve seen each other?”

She rubbed her thumb against her ring, twisting the diamond all the way around before she relaxed back into the leather seat. “Yeah. I blew off the reunions.”

“So did I.”

“Probably for different reasons though, Mr. Famous.”

“And why did  _you_  blow them off?”

“I don’t like looking back. You should focus on the future, you know?”

“I know a little bit about the future.”

“Right. You’re on what, your third multi-million dollar tech start-up? Or is it your fourth?”

“Fourth.” He took a sip of his vodka. The waiter had appeared and disappeared without even registering on Willa.

“Always one step ahead of everyone else when it comes to the future of everything. Tell me, do you know Jeff Bezos?”

“We’ve met.”

She leaned across the table and whispered, “Do you have his number in your phone?”

“Perhaps. Why?”

“So I can send him rude texts at three in the morning.”

Chris laughed and slid his phone away from her. “What do you have against the founder of Amazon?”

She pulled her business card holder from her purse and handed him one.

He took it from her and read the elegant print embossed on the heavy cotton paper. “You manage an independent bookstore?”

“Proprietor.”

“Quite the business woman.” He tucked the card into his pocket.

“And I can just hear you thinking that I’m twenty years too late to the game.”

“No. There’s still room for bookstores. Not a lot, but the good ones find their niche and exploit it.”

“Author readings, special section on the local area, book clubs, ESL program, special deals with the café next door instead of the Starbucks across the street, QR codes on the receipt to sign up for the newsletter, social media,” she listed off and sighed. “If you can think of it, I’m doing it.”

His phone buzzed and he picked it up. She sipped her water while he listened to whoever was on the other end. “What’s your personal email?” he asked her. She told him and he repeated it to the person on the other end of the call. A minute and a few brief comments later, he hung up. “Well, you’re on a flight out Tuesday morning.”

“But it’s Sunday evening and I’m supposed to work tomorrow.”

“You’re going to have to get one of your employees to cover it for you, Ms. Proprietor.”

“Well, thanks for finding me a flight. I’m assuming the details are getting emailed to me?”

“Yes, and I’m sorry you have to wait until Tuesday, but he did get you bumped to first class.”

“Ooooh, fancy.” She finished the rest of her water. “Well, I guess I should go see about finding a hotel for the next few nights.”

“Stay with me.”

Her jaw worked for a few seconds before she managed to respond. “Uh, no.”

“Why not?”

“Because  _you_ and  _me_  and…” she sighed.

“Used to be a couple?” he finished for her.

“Yes! And I realized long ago that it was incredibly naïve of me to think that we could make it work when we headed off to universities in different states, but like, we have a sexual history and stuff, and I don’t think being snowed in with you at your house is really a wise idea.”

“Well, first, it’s not my house. It’s a hotel suite with separate bedrooms.”

“I’m not sure that’s any better, Chris.” She flicked the coaster across the table at him and it hit him in the chest. His defensive skills had worsened in the years they had been apart.

He flicked the coaster back to her and she smacked it, stopping its slide several inches from the edge of the table. “Right, but Todd tried to book you a hotel room, and you can either get a cab to take you to New Jersey or you can crash in my hotel room because there’s nothing safe left in New York City with the storm.”

“Seriously?”

“Everyone who was planning on flying out today kept their hotel rooms.”

“Except for me.” She shook her head and flicked the coaster. This time he stopped it before it hit him.

“Well…” He wasn’t going to comment on her history of failing to make back-up plans.

“You’re probably staying at a fancy-pants hotel, aren’t you?”

“The Four Seasons.” He flicked it back and she caught it.

“Of course. Is it nice being disgustingly rich?”

“It rather is.” He pulled some cash from his wallet and placed it on the table. “Come on, let’s go get something to eat.”

“Fine, but I’m paying for dinner.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I insist.”

“I’m the disgustingly rich one. I’ll pay for dinner.”

“I could be disgustingly rich too.”

“You own an independent book store. Your profit margin’s what, five or six percent on a million dollar inventory?”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s what I do. You’re not disgustingly wealthy.”

“My husband could be disgustingly wealthy. Maybe I enjoy squandering his money.”

Chris shook his head. “He’s not.”

“You don’t know anything about my husband. How could you know that?”

“The diamond on your finger is less than a carat.”

She jerked her hand back from the coaster and hid it in her lap. “He could have made his money since we got married.”

“He would have upgraded the stone.”

“You think I would marry the type of guy who would  _upgrade_  the diamond he gave me as a sign of his love?”

“No, I don’t, but the only other jewelry you’re wearing is a pair of simple earrings. A man makes a lot of money, he gives the woman he’s married to nice jewelry, and you’re the type of girl who would wear something like that all the time, so he’s not disgustingly wealthy and you’re not paying for dinner.”

He stood up but she remained seated. “How do you know what type of girl I am? You haven’t seen me in over a decade and I’m a woman now, not a girl.”

“Some things don’t change, though, Willa. Do you still have my class ring? You never did give it back.”

She frowned and then looked away from him. The bar was filling up as stranded travelers tried to fortify themselves for dealing with cancelled flights and sleeping on cold airport seats. “It’s in a box in my attic,” she finally admitted.

“Together with, let me guess,” he stopped and scratched his cheek as he thought, “your corsage from prom, at least three of the notes we passed back and forth in Senior English, and my t-shirt you stole to sleep in.”

Her eyes narrowed and she rubbed her thumb against her ring again. “I don’t remember you being such a smug bastard when we dated.”

He shrugged. “Some things do change.”

Willa gave in to the inevitable and stood up. “Fine, you can pay for dinner.”

>< 

The driver took her purple suitcase from her and stowed it in the trunk of the black Lincoln while Chris helped her into the back seat. The divider was up, providing her and Chris with privacy to talk but the last thing she wanted to do was continue to talk to the man sitting next to her. She was fragile right now, had actually been fragile for months now, and he could so easily be a rampaging bull without even knowing it. He was too big a part of her past and could read her expression too easily, even when she thought she was being completely opaque. Instead of talking, she stared out the tinted window at the passing traffic and the falling snow. The heated leather seat cradled her body like it had been custom made for her and she started relaxing into it against her will.

“So, catch me up on what’s changed in your life. You’re married. Own a bookstore. Do you have kids?”

She kept staring out at the city as the grey of the cloudy sky gave way to the flecks of white being lit by oncoming headlights against the black of night. The wet streets gleamed with an artist’s palette of bleeding colors. “No.”

“That surprises me. I thought you’d have one or two by now.”

“So did I, but sometimes you don’t get what you want.”

She was still staring out the window but her back had gone rigid and he saw the subtle tilt of her jaw that she had always gotten when she was upset and trying not to show it. “I’m sorry.”

She finally looked at him. “What are you apologizing for? It’s not your fault.”

“I can tell it’s a painful topic. I’m sorry for bringing it up.”

She shook her head but her hair didn’t fall forward to cover her face. She’d lost the ability to hide in plain sight when she’d lost her hair. That meant she had to keep talking. “Well, unless you’re very good at hiding your private life from the tabloids, you’re not married and don’t have kids, either.”

“You are correct.”

“Is there a hidden girlfriend?”

“Nope.”

“So you just spend all your time making new businesses and then selling them for obscene amounts of money.”

“I do give a lot of the money away.”

Willa smirked. “That’s nice of you.”

“So tell me something else about you. You cut your hair at some point. It looks good.”

She ran her fingers through it and then messed with her bangs, trying to comb them back into place using her transparent reflection in the window as a mirror. “My husband hates it.”

“What do you think of it?”

“I don’t know. I’m still getting used to it. I only chopped it a few weeks ago.”

“Was it still super long?”

“Yeah. My mom’s going through chemo and I cut it off to have a wig made for her.”

“Wow. That’s really…” He held out his hands helplessly as he sought for the words that wouldn’t come. “That’s amazing. How is she doing?”

“She’s okay, all things considered. They caught it early so there’s still hope.”

“How’s your dad handling it?”

She laughed. “Dad.” She shook her head as she thought of all the meetings with oncologists she had mediated between her father and the doctors. “Dad has bought every crystal with healing properties that he can find, he’s making green smoothies filled with I don’t even want to know what supplements, and he had mom’s chakras realigned.”

“So, that sounds pretty normal for him.”

“Yeah.” She turned in her seat so she was angled more towards him and rested the side of her head on the seat back. “How are your parents?”

“Still working away. I told them they could retire now but they said they would be bored. I paid off their house and they went and bought an RV and told me I wasn’t allowed to pay that off. ‘We’re not old and decrepit, son. We can still take care of ourselves.’”

“That sounds just like your dad.”

“Yeah. My mom said, ‘I don’t need you to buy us things, Chris. I need you to figure out how to keep Kevin off of drugs.’”

“Wow.” She rubbed the back of his hand that rested on the seat between them. “That’s a lot of pressure to put on you.”

“I’m used to it.”

“He’s still using?”

“Yeah. My parents keep bailing him out. Every specialist I’ve talked to says you have to let them face the consequences of fucking up, but they can’t make themselves do that.”

Her phone buzzed and she pulled it from her purse. “It’s my husband.”

Chris nodded.

She turned away from him and stared out the window again. “Hey…Yeah, I’m fine but I’m stuck in New York until Tuesday…That’s the soonest I could get one…I’ll call Jennifer and she’ll figure it out…Yeah, I’m going to get something to eat and then check in at the hotel…The Four Seasons…I know it’s expensive, but I’m not paying for it. I ran into a friend at the airport and she has access to a corporate suite and is letting me crash there since they didn’t have anyone on the schedule to use it…Don’t worry, I won’t get used to it…Yeah, I know…I know, Jonathan…Yes, I know. I’ll make sure to reuse the towels…Yes, I’ll tip the cleaning ladies…sorry, cleaning people…I don’t think that’s going to be possible…I’ll ask room service, but I’m probably not going to be able to start it tomorrow…We’ll start it next week…Listen, I’m at the restaurant, so I’m going to have to go now, I’ll call you later…I love you.”

She hung up and held the phone in both hands in her lap. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Hear what?”

“Whatever it is you have going on in your head right now.”

“I have nothing going on in my head right now.”

She darted a look at him and wrinkled her nose. “You’re lying through your straightened, bleached, possibly veneered teeth.”

“Not veneered.”

It was too quiet in the car. “He’s a really good guy, okay?”

“I’m sure he is. You wouldn’t marry someone who wasn’t.”

Willa stayed silent as long as she could. “It’s just,” she sighed, “it’s just that he hates you and things are sticky enough between us already without me telling him I’m staying with you.”

It was part vanity and part unwillingness to pry into something uncomfortable again that made him focus on the first part of what she had said instead of the second. “He hates  _me_?”

“Well, more the  _idea_  of you.”

“The  _idea_  of me?”

Willa held up her phone. “You see the number he dialed from?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a landline.”

“You guys have a landline,” Chris repeated in disbelief.

“He refuses to get a cell phone.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a bit of a Luddite.”

“So, I, as an internet person, am the devil.”

“More like spawn of Satan. I think he considers Thomas Edison to be where it all started going wrong.”

Chris ran his hand over his hair a few times as he digested that bit of information. “May I ask what your husband does for a living?”

“He’s an organic farmer.”

He nodded a few times. “Noble.”

“It is. We actually met at a farmer’s market. He had the best salad greens every week and he seduced me with fresh strawberries and the sweetest cherries I’ve ever tasted.”

“Does he know we dated?”

“We almost broke up over it.”

“Why?”

“Because he couldn’t accept that I could have loved ‘someone with  _those_  values’ and also love him.”

“At least he didn’t make you give up your cell phone.”

“He tried to convince me to get rid of it, but I refused. He may be able to run his business without a cell, but I can’t. This baby has everything on it. Between it and my iPad, they run my life.”

“Are you a vegetarian now? Because if you are I think we should switch restaurants.”

“I want the biggest, juiciest steak you have ever seen for dinner. I want a bottle of red that is not from an organically certified vineyard to go with it, and pasta with gluten in it. Oooooh, mac and cheese. Maybe I should just get a vat of macaroni and cheese made with real cheese.”

“Is he vegan? Are  _you_  vegan?”

“He’s almost completely vegan. He’ll give in once in a while and cheat by putting honey on his toast. His gluten-free toast.”

“And you?”

“I’m pretty vegetarian at home, and if I’m cooking for both of us, I’ll cook vegan. But if I’m out to lunch or on a business trip, I eat whatever I want.”

“I’d be taking a lot of business trips.”

“I have been lately, but not because of that. I go to the big book and writing conferences so I can meet the authors. They’re more likely to come do readings if they can put a face to the name.”

“The steak is just a side benefit.”

“And hot showers as long as I want. California’s in the middle of a drought and I feel guilty wasting the water, even though it goes into a greywater system.”

“You feel guilty or he makes you feel guilty?”

“ _I_  feel guilty. I have a social conscience too, you know. I seek out minority authors and stock them on the shelf with everyone else so the shoppers can’t just skip the minority section, okay, and I make sure at least two-thirds of my authors invited to do readings in the store are minority as well. You used to tease me about trying to save the world, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember. You were always signing petitions for everything. You made me change what gas station I filled up my car at.”

“His thing is food. My thing is books. He doesn’t have to put up with me making him listen to me reading aloud paragraphs of whatever I’m reading when I’m gone, and I get to eat whatever I want.”

“Good, because the place we’re going has an amazing steak.”

>< 

Willa staggered across the plush carpeting and collapsed onto the sofa. Chris moved her suitcase out of the middle of the floor and sat in the chair opposite. “Good?”

“That steak was amazing. And the wine? When did you become a wine person?”

“About the same time I became a smug bastard.”

She blew a raspberry at him. “You need to email me the name of that so I can ask for it again sometime, because that was luscious, and I’m too buzzed to remember it if you told me it right now.” Her eyes closed.

Chris smiled as he watched her lying motionless on the sofa. Other than her hair now being pixie short, she didn’t look that much different from when they had dated. He’d kissed a few girls before her, but she had been his first for almost everything else. Their prom had been something out of a television show, with him booking a hotel room for the night and both of them having sex for the first time. He had been young and unexperienced and hadn’t lasted long. Definitely not long enough for her to orgasm. At least he had known she hadn’t come and had insisted on fixing that. It was the only time he had come first when with a woman; after the embarrassment he had felt, he always made sure his partner came first. Two years of high school and a perfect summer had given way like an old dam to the pressures of long distances and the demands placed on them between Berkeley for her and MIT for him. They hadn’t made it through their freshman year apart. “What are you thinking?”

“Honestly?”

Her mind was always ten thousand miles from where he thought it would be. His favorite part of the road trip had been watching her stare out at the passing scenery in silence for miles and then asking her what she was thinking about. The answer was always a surprise, ranging from alien invasions to the feeding habits of otters. “Yes, please.”

“That I need to wash my panties in the sink before I go to sleep because I don’t have any clean pairs left for tomorrow.”

Surprisingly prosaic. “Just use the laundry.”

Her eyes opened and she looked around. “There’s a washing machine in here?”

“No, you put your clothes in the laundry bag, call housekeeping, and they’ll come pick it up and have it back to you before you wake up in the morning.”

“Well, I obviously need to start staying at hotels rather than hostels. What a difference one little letter makes.” With a groan she rolled off the couch and crawled over to where Chris had placed her suitcase. “Where’s that magical bag?”

He got up to go get the bag while she unzipped her suitcase and pawed through it for her underwear. He came back and handed it to her where she sat on the carpet, her toiletries bag on the floor on one side of her and a few pairs of sensible shoes on the other. A small pile of beige and white underwear sat on the unzipped top of the suitcase.

“Will they wash all my clothes or do they just do underwear?”

“Just the underwear.”

“That’s kind of weird.” She shoved them in the bag and went back to sorting through her laundry to make sure she hadn’t missed any.

He chuckled. “I was kidding, Willa. They’ll wash all your clothes.”

She gave him the stink-eye and then shoved handfuls of laundry into the bag. “One less thing I have to do when I get home.” She pushed the last few items of clothing from her suitcase into the bag and then pulled it closed. “Now what?”

“Call the laundry to pick it up.”

Her eyes squeezed closed as if she was facing down a firing squad. “Will you call?” she whispered.

“Still hate talking on the phone to strangers?”

She nodded.

He laughed and picked up the phone and hit a single button. “I’ve got laundry to pick up. Thank you.” He hung up.

“It’s that easy?”

He nodded.

“And then I’ll have a basket of clean clothes waiting in the morning?”

“It’ll even be folded.”

“This is nice. I hang my clothes out to dry on a clothesline at home, and someone kept stealing my underwear, so now I hang it to dry in the bathroom.”

“You need to move and get different neighbors.”

“We live on a farm. We don’t have neighbors.”

“Then who do you think is stealing your underwear?”

“The ostriches maybe?”

“You have ostriches?”

She snickered. “No, I was kidding.”

He grinned at her. “Nice payback.”

“I can still give as good as I get.”

“I think I still have a scar on my stomach from you giving.”

“Don’t tickle a girl with big rings on.”

“I don’t anymore. I learned my lesson.”

There was a knock on the door.

She looked towards the sound and then up at him. “Do you think that’s the laundry people already?”

“The service here is superb.”

Willa stood up and grabbed the laundry bag before she opened the door.

“You have laundry for pickup?”

She handed the young man the bag and he looked at her. Willa looked back. Chris came up behind her and handed him a folded bill.

“Thank you, sir.”

Chris shut the door as Willa hid her face in her hands. “I feel like I’m in  _My Fair Lady_ , but instead of a cockney flower girl, you’re stuck trying to sophisticate a California farm girl.”

“You’re very sophisticated.”

“Right. Pull the other one.”

“You’re the most well-read person I know. Speaking of that, why aren’t there books in your suitcase? I haven’t seen you touch a book in three hours.”

“I packed them all in the suitcase I checked.”

His eyes widened and he backed away, holding his hands up like she had suddenly morphed into the villain from a slasher movie. “You’re bookless?”

She flipped him the bird. “I have my Kindle in my purse.”

He clutched his heart in relief. “Oh good. I didn’t want you trying to watch TV to fall asleep.”

“That was  _so_  long ago.”

“That whole trip you couldn’t fall asleep until you’d read in bed for at least half an hour, no matter how tired you were.”

Willa flung herself back down on the sofa. “I still can’t believe our parents let us take that road trip together.”

“I think they were letting us have one last hurrah. The summer before college, we’d been together for almost two years at that point so they assumed we were sleeping together anyway, and they knew we wouldn’t make it through the first year of college together, so why not? Let us have one final adventure.”

“My mom was really surprised we made it all the way to prom before we had sex. Of course, I only told her that about two years ago.”

Chris picked up her feet and sat down and put her feet back in his lap. “My dad started leaving boxes of condoms on my desk after we’d been dating for about three months.”

“What did you do with them?”

“Sold them in the boys’ bathroom at school.”

She laughed and rubbed the back of her hand across her face. “And that’s where you made your first million.”

“Not quite, but my dad made sure I knew I didn’t have to use them when I was masturbating after a few months of that because I was going through them so fast.”

“That must have been an awkward conversation.”

“Yeah.” There was an uncomfortable silence and Willa walked over to the windows and pulled open the curtains.

“I’ve never seen snow like this.”

He came up behind her and gazed out at the falling snow. “You always were a California girl.”

“If you live in heaven, why do you need to go anywhere else?”

“There are lots of heavens out there. You just have to find them.”

She shook her head. “I like the one I’ve got.”

“Did you ever backpack across Europe like we had talked about doing?”

“Yeah, actually. Jonathan and I did that for our honeymoon. Europass and hostels. Did you?”

“Didn’t end up backpacking it, but I’ve seen a lot of the world since I graduated.”

“Did you actually graduate? I thought you dropped out once Sidewinder had its IPO.”

“No. I’m not a Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates. I actually finished school. Didn’t need student loans for my senior year, though.”

She leaned her forehead against the glass and peered down at the deserted street. No one was on the sidewalks and only one taxicab was moving on the road. “It looks peaceful down there.”

“I’m glad we went to the restaurant in the hotel. We would have ended up having to walk back if we had gone somewhere else.”

“Do you think if I called room service, they would send up another bottle of that wine?”

“If they have it in their cellar.”

“Huh.” She giggled. “In their cellar,” she said with a snooty expression. “I’m going to start singing “I Could Have Danced All Night” any minute now.”

“You know, I bet we could stream  _My Fair Lady_  if you want.”

“Oh god no,” she pulled the curtains closed, and then draped one across herself like Maria brainstorming children’s outfits.” I hate that movie.”

Chris had absolutely no idea why she was wrapping herself in the curtains. “Being with me reminds you of a movie you hate?”

She spun around, draping the curtain over her head and pulling it under her chin like an old babushka. “I love it up until the end. He was such a jerk to her and she’s in love with him? I mean, even if you don’t want to marry Freddy, at least go find that room of your own somewhere.”

Chris nodded sagely in agreement. “I’m sure I would have stronger opinions about this if I had seen the movie.”

The curtain was immediately discarded. “You’ve never seen  _My Fair Lady?”_

“No.”

“Have you seen  _The King and I?”_

“No.”

“ _Oklahoma_?”

“No.”

“ _Singin’ in the Rain?”_

He shook his head.

“ _West Side Story?”_  she asked desperately.

“Nope.”

“What did we do for almost two years before we started having sex?”

Chris laughed and tweaked her nose. “We made out and we were in AP classes and spent a lot of time actually studying.”

“Yeah, we were kind of nerdy like that.” She took a deep breath and let it out noisily. “Well, that settles it. We have to watch some musicals tonight. Do you have a minibar in here?”

“Yes, but I don’t think there’re movies in it.”

“Ha ha. I’m going to see if there’s popcorn or if that’s too déclassé for The Four Seasons.”

Chris laughed. “I thought you were full.”

“We’re going to watch movies. We have to have popcorn.”

“Okay. You get out what you want.  _I’m_  going to go change into something more comfortable.”

“Lucky.”

“What, that I get to change clothes?”

“Yeah.”

He looked at her empty suitcase lying open on the floor. “Did you give the laundry all your pajamas?”

“I didn’t pack any pajamas. I sleep naked when I’m by myself.”

He briefly thought about saying that he’d seen her naked before so she should feel free to lounge around in the nude but he had more sense than that. “There’s a robe in your bedroom.”

“Really? Which one’s my bedroom?”

“Which one do you want?”

“You’re going to let me choose?”

“Of course.”

“Well, let’s go see the rooms.”

She settled on the smaller one, insisting that he take the larger one that had a separate sitting area. Several minutes later she wandered back into the living room, wrapped in a fluffy white robe and trailing a blanket she had found in one of the closets. “Why did you book a two bedroom suite anyway? Was someone else supposed to be here?”

Chris took the popcorn out of the microwave and shook the bag. He had changed into a white t-shirt and grey pajama pants. “Todd switched my reservation over so you would have someplace to stay.”

“So, you normally don’t rent an entire apartment? Because seriously, this is an apartment. The terrace outside is bigger than my bedroom at home, and there are three and a half bathrooms in here. I don’t have three and a half bathrooms at home.” She had opened every single door in the entire suite before coming back to the living room.

“No, I normally get a smaller suite.”

“So, you’re spending… like an extra thousand dollars tonight because I got stranded?”

“It’s no big deal.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“It really isn’t, Willa.”

“To me it is. God, Jonathan would have a cow if he saw this place. An entire cow. Full grown; not a calf.”

“And he’d probably make sure it was free-range and grass fed, too.”

She brandished the television remote at him like she was three seconds from hucking it at his head. “Are you making fun of my husband?”

“No. I just want you to stop worrying about how I choose to spend my money.”

Her arm dropped to her side again. “If it makes you feel better, I worry about how I choose to spend my money and how my husband spends his money and it kind of just overflows onto everyone around me. It’s hard to stop the habit.”

“It’ll give you wrinkles.”

“So? Kelly keeps buying purses. She tells me she’s saving up money so she can move out of her parents’ house, but she keeps showing up with new Coach purses and she thinks it’s okay because she buys them at an outlet or on eBay or something, but I just want to sit her down and tell her to stop buying purses because each one of those would pay a week’s rent.”

“Who is Kelly?”

“One of my employees.”

Chris rubbed the knuckle of his thumb against his lips and then shrugged and turned away.

“What?”

“What what?”

“What are you thinking?”

“Nothing.”

“I can tell when there’s something you desperately want to say but you’re biting your tongue. Just say it. I’m a big girl. I can take it.”

“I think you should get a pet.”

“A pet?”

“A pet.”

“Why do you think I should get a pet?”

“It would give you something to mother instead of doing it to all the adults in your life.”

Willa didn’t know how to respond to that. Her chest ached like all the air had been knocked out of her lungs, and her stomach roiled, wanting to reject the delicious meal that now had a vile aftertaste in her mouth. After doing her best fish impression for a few seconds she turned on her heel and stormed out of the room.

Chris heard what he assumed was her bedroom door slamming and his eyes sank shut. She had always insisted on hearing what was going on in his head, even if he knew it would hurt her. Apparently she was still as sensitive as she had always been.

Chris knocked on her bedroom door. “Willa, I’m sorry.”

“I think that is the most hurtful thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“You told me to tell you.”

She opened the bedroom door a few inches and stared at him through the gap. She wasn’t crying. She didn’t cry when she was hurt. She just brooded and didn’t sleep. “Why would you even think that?”

“Because you’re still scolding me like I’m eighteen and spent too much on your birthday present. I’ve grown up, Willa. You don’t need to worry about my finances. I know what I’m doing.”

“I’m glad someone does,” she muttered.

“What do you mean?”

She shook her head. “Just stuff.”

“Stuff like what? Talk to me, Cather.”

“Wow. I haven’t been called that since… Since us, I guess.”

“I still have the copy of  _O, Pioneers_ you made me read tucked away somewhere. Now talk. You’ve dropped too many comments about being unhappy tonight. You need to let it out.”

“Like, I’ve got my bookstore and I spend my day surrounded by books and I drink my latte and talk to customers and get to talk about books all day and I’m healthy and married to a man who loves me and have enough money to pay my bills but I feel like I’m just waiting for the penny to drop. Like, I’m sick to my stomach four days out of five waiting for someone to come tell me that it’s all over now and the rest of my life gets taken away too.”

“How long have you felt like this?”

“About six months now.”

“What happened six months ago?”

“Jonathan found out he’s shooting blanks.”

It took Chris a few seconds to catch on. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you thought about adopting or using a sperm donor or something like that? They can do miraculous things now.”

“He doesn’t want to raise someone else’s child.”

“But it would be yours. I mean, I know genetically it wouldn’t be, but you would love it like it was.”

“It’s the genetics that matter to him. The biology of it all. He cares about the bloodlines. It’s what makes him such a good farmer.”

“But a shitty husband.”

“Chris!” She smacked his arm.

“I’m not taking it back.”

“He’s not a shitty husband. He’s the one who taught me how to get the loans I needed to start up my bookstore. Do you know how hard it is to get a small business loan these days for a brick and mortar bookstore?”

“Probably really difficult.”

“It was horrendous, but he never let me give up and showed me how to keep going. I have my dream because of him.”

“You have part of your dream because of him, but he’s also keeping you from getting the rest of it.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Abandon him because his sperm doesn’t work right? Like, any other medical condition I would be a horrible person for even thinking about it. Oh sorry, honey. Turns out your kidneys aren’t working so great anymore and I don’t want to put up with you being on dialysis so I’m leaving. I would be a heartless bitch. So why is it any different just because he can’t father a child?”

“You’ve got the analogy wrong.”

“Oh, the tech genius is going to tell the lit person they have the analogy wrong.”

“Yeah, I am, because it only works if you agree to stick around for the dialysis and he refuses to take the treatments or keeps drinking alcohol and stressing the kidney function he has left. He’s refusing to take his medicine, Willa, knowing that it’s breaking your heart, and no matter what he’s done for you in the past, that’s shitty of him.”

Her chin started to quiver.

“Oh, god damn it, I made you cry.”

“I’m not crying.”

“I know. You don’t cry.” He pushed her bedroom door the rest of the way open and hugged her. Her back stiffened for a moment and then she melted into the hug, resting her head against his shoulder and linking her arms around his waist.

He stroked her back for endless minutes. She felt different in his arms, a little heavier than she’d been in high school and her hair was almost all gone, but she was still the same height and she still snuggled against his throat, tucking her forehead against the corner of his jaw. “I don’t know what to do, Chris. All the little things that didn’t matter now seem so huge. It’s like, first it was meat, and then dairy and then more and more little things about food, and we moved out to the farm so we could be more self-sustaining and live off the grid so I have a long commute every day, and when does that become the next thing that he decides we should give up. I drive a Prius; what’s the next step? We keep chickens for the farm, but we keep roosters because he doesn’t want the eggs. Do you know how loud a flock of roosters is at six in the morning?”

“Loud?”

“Imagine standing on the runway as a jet takes off over your head, but replace the sound of the engines with a rooster at the same volume.”

“That sounds horrific.”

“He calls it nature’s alarm clock.”

“Alarm clocks should have volume controls and snooze buttons.”

“I agree. I gave up a fucking normal alarm clock for him.” That was the tipping point and her stoic resolve cracked and shattered. A sob wrenched its way out of her throat and Chris picked her up and carried her back to the living room where he sat on the sofa and held her in his lap. She cried silently. If it wasn’t for the way her body trembled he wouldn’t even know she was crying, but he could feel the gentle tremors rippling through her, and he continued to hold her, stroking her back and having nothing to say.

When she was finally still he checked to see if she was sleeping. Her eyes were shut and he whispered her name. She didn’t respond. He carefully stood, careful not to jostle her as he got to his feet and took her back to her bed. Luckily for his attempt to not wake her, turndown service had already been by and he tucked her into the king sized bed and pulled the blankets up around her. It was a far cry from the cheap motels they had stayed in on their road trip. The bed was bigger, the room was bigger. Everything was bigger. Except for her. She looked so small. He brushed her bangs to one side and then kissed her gently on the forehead.


	2. Chapter 2

Willa peeked out her bedroom door to find her neatly folded and clean laundry sitting in the hallway. She could hear Chris talking to someone so she grabbed the clothes and brought them inside to get dressed. Black leggings and a teal tunic suited her plans to lock herself in the bedroom until her flight the next day, but first she needed food.

Quietly she made her way out to the mini-bar. Chris was pacing back and forth, talking to someone on his phone about something complicated sounding with a lot of acronyms. She opened the fridge door and started rifling through it looking for something breakfasty when Chris called to her.

“Don’t eat too much,” he had his phone pressed to his chest, “because you have plans today.”

She put the chocolate back and grabbed a banana instead.

Chris finished up his call about the same time as Willa finished her fruit. “I’ve got meetings all day today so I called down to the spa and booked you for the day.”

“You booked me into the spa for a day?”

“You had a rough night last night. I thought you could you a little pampering.”

“Chris…”

He held up a finger. “You are not allowed to apologize or even think about the cost.”

She wrinkled her nose. She’d been about to do both.

“Friends take care of each other.”

“Yeah, well, let me know when you want a book recommendation.”

“I’ll do that. Now go put some shoes on and off to the spa with you.”

Nine hours later, Willa walked back into the hotel room feeling like a different person. Chris was stretched out on the sofa watching  _My Fair Lady_ and he smiled at her as she peeked around the corner.

“Well?”

“I feel like I could float.”

“You look like you’re glowing.”

“That was the exfoliating something or other. I think it had sesame in it. Or the facial. I don’t know what that had in it but I look five years younger.”

“Nice day then?”

“The hair on my head feels like silk, and almost all the rest of the hair on my body is gone. And I have a pedicure.” She kicked off her sandal and held out a foot for him to admire. “I don’t think my toes have ever looked cuter.”

“Those are some cute toes.”

She sank back in the chair and sighed happily. “You should get a massage, too. Ask for the one with the rocks.”

“Those are nice.”

She looked at the screen. “Oh, you’re just at the “I Could Have Danced All Night” part. I love this part.”

He started the film again. It didn’t take long for her to start singing along. When the maids started trying to get Eliza to go to bed, she got up and started dancing around the living room. When it was over, she fell back in her chair.

“You want to go dancing tonight?”

“I don’t have anything to wear for that.”

“I’m sure we could find you something.”

“Like go shopping?”

“Yes.”

“Nooooooo.”

“Why not?”

“Well, one, most of New York City is snowed under so I think the shops are going to be closed; two, that’s taking this even more into  _Pretty Woman_  territory than it already is; and third,” she couldn’t meet his eyes as she flipped up the final finger, “that feels kind of like a date.”

There was a second’s pause before he answered. “Right. So what do you want to do tonight?”

“Watch a bunch of musicals, order room service and admire my manicure.” She wiggled her fingers near her face and Chris chuckled.

“That sounds like a good plan.”

They finished up watching  _My Fair Lady_ and moved on to  _Oklahoma._ Chris used the evil dance sequence to order room service for both of them so she wouldn’t keep smacking him for laughing and Willa periodically would wiggle her fingers in Chris’s face and make him say her nails were pretty. Part way through  _Singin’ in the Rain,_ she stuck her fingers in his face again and he grabbed her hand.

Willa froze and stared at their joined hands. It was that moment where she knew she should back away, take her hand away and move to the other end of the sofa, but she couldn’t make herself. Her heart refused to beat and her lungs refused to expand as she looked at Chris. He had the same pole-axed expression on his face she knew she had on hers. The skin across her chest felt hot and tight as she dropped her eyes to his hand wrapped around hers again.

He shifted his fingers so their hands were mirroring each other. Neither one of them said anything. He shifted them a few more degrees and they interlocked. He lowered their joined hands onto the empty cushion between them and they both went back to watching  _Singin’ in the Rain._ Half an hour later his phone rang. “I have to get that.” He slowly let go of her hand and then lurched unsteadily to his feet.

She paused the movie while he was gone. The hand he had been holding was warmer than her other one and she pressed it against her face. Her face was warmer than normal too. She rubbed her thumb against her wedding ring, feeling the diamond press into her skin with each rotation. They hadn’t looked at each other in the last thirty minutes. It felt like she had barely breathed during that time. He felt so good next to her, familiar and new swirled together into something heady and intoxicating. She’d felt more sober the night before after half a bottle of wine, and all he had done was touch her hand. What would it be like if he touched somewhere else? What if he kissed her? What if she kissed him back?

Chris barely listened to the man on the phone, distracted by thoughts of the woman in the other room. She was married and he had never been that guy, but this was Willa and he couldn’t make himself care that she wasn’t his anymore. It was like his heart had muscle memory. She was happier tonight than she had been the night before. Her husband was making her miserable, chipping away at her bit by bit, and he would never do that to her. She needed someone to make her smile. He could make her smile. He could do so much more than make her smile.

When he went back out to the living room, he sat down on the sofa and stretched his arm across the back of it. He wasn’t that guy. He wasn’t going to push for something. He’d made the first move. She would have to make the second if anything else was going to happen.

Willa waited for his arm to slide down onto her shoulders but it didn’t. He was waiting for her to do something. He’d always been patient with her; there was a reason that they didn’t have sex for almost two years. Here he was being patient again. If she didn’t do anything, nothing would happen. Did she want something to happen?

She turned her head to look at him, but he kept his eyes on the screen. The softness of his face from when he was younger was gone. His jaw was square, his cheekbones more defined, his eyes still bluer than a tropical sea in a Hollywood movie. His hair was different. Less nerd, more bad boy geek. Was that a thing? Intelligent rock star? Something. Whatever it was, he looked good. Very good. He looked sexy. It shouldn’t be a surprise. She’d seen him on magazine covers in her bookstore, and his name popped up in the news often enough. She’d known how handsome he’d become. Up close though was different. It was more overpowering. It might have been because she could feel the warmth coming off of his body or the scent of what she was sure was a very expensive cologne. Maybe it was because this close she could see each individual hair in the scruff that roughened his jawline. Maybe it was because she could see the way his t-shirt cut against the curve of his bicep as he rested his other arm on the arm of the sofa. Maybe it was just him.

Willa scooted over and nestled into his side. His arm closed around her and she rested her head on his shoulder. She felt his lips brush against her hair and she placed her hand on his thigh. The muscle flexed under her hand and then relaxed.

They watched the movie. Chris also watched her fidget with her wedding band. He didn’t say anything.

His phone rang again and they both jumped as the sound shattered the heavy aura of waiting that surrounded both of them. He apologized. “I’m sorry I have to get that. The snow messed up all the meetings I was supposed to have today so we’re finishing up on the phone.”

“It’s not a problem.” She sat up so he could stand and he left the room again.

When he came back, he sat down on the sofa next to her. She pressed play on the remote and then set it on the coffee table. Next to her wedding ring.

“Willa.” Every muscle in his body was so tense he could barely move to get her name out.

“Chris.” She didn’t take her eyes off of the television screen.

“Why did you take off your ring, Willa?”

“The only person I’ve kissed while wearing it is my husband. I thought if I was going to kiss you, I should take it off first.”

“Are you going to kiss me?”

She turned her face to him. His pupils were wider than they should be in a room this well-lit and his mouth was slightly open. “If you let me.”

He shifted his weight so he was facing her. “You’re married.”

“I know.” She leaned in towards him, far enough that she placed her hand on his knee to steady herself.

Chris dug his fingers into the sofa cushion. “I’m not the kind of guy who has affairs.”

“I’m not asking for an affair. I just want tonight. Make love to me just for tonight and tomorrow I’ll be on a plane and gone and we’ll not see each other again for another twelve years.”

He was holding on to his self-restraint by his fingertips and then she whispered, “Please.”

Their lips collided as they reached for each other. His hands closed around her waist and he hauled her roughly into his lap.

“Damn it, Willa, we shouldn’t be doing this,” he murmured against her lips as his hands slid under her shirt and up the smooth skin of her back.

“I know but I don’t care.” She pulled off his glasses and tossed them onto the couch. “I need you.”

He stripped off her shirt and his hands closed over her breasts long enough to squeeze before he pulled down the cups of her bra. “God, that’s not fair. I’ve got gray hair and you still have the body of an eighteen year old.” He pulled her closer, lifting her breast to his lips. His tongue ran slow circles around her nipple before he sucked it into his mouth. Willa scored lines down his arms with her newly painted nails as she grabbed ahold of him. Her eyes sagged shut as he tugged at her nipple before letting it go, only to move to the other one. His tongue rasped against her nipple and she moaned and ran her fingers through his hair, messing with the artfully disheveled style.

She clasped his face, pulled him up to her for a kiss, desperately needing the feel of his lips against hers, the feel of his breath filling her lungs. Their lips touched, their tongues touched, their mouths pressed against each other, against jaws, against throats, across shoulders. He unhooked her bra and slid the straps down her arms. She pulled up his shirt, ran her nails over his chest, ran her rough tongue over his nipples.

He stood up, holding her with one arm under her hips and carried her to his bedroom where they tumbled onto the bed together.

“Please tell me you have a condom,” she moaned as he pressed against her core, letting her take his full weight for a moment.

“In my suitcase.” He kissed down her sternum, squeezing her breasts together so his scruff rubbed against both of them.

“Please, now.”

“So quickly?”

“We can go slowly next time. I just need to feel you inside me.”

He nipped at the pale skin of her stomach and slid off of her, trailing his hand over the goosebumps that had emerged on her skin. It took him just a few moments to return, dumping a handful of condoms on the nightstand and ripping one packet open with his teeth before he tossed it on the bed.

“That’s a lot of condoms.”

“You said I get to make love to you for one night. I don’t plan on letting you sleep.”

She sat up and reached for the button on his jeans. As soon as she had popped it open she went for the zipper, yanking it down and then pulling down his jeans and boxer briefs enough to free his cock. Her eyes widened. “It really is as big as I remember.”

Laughter rumbled in his chest until she touched him and then his eyelids sagged. His mouth fell open as her warm fingers wrapped around his shaft, gently stroking up and down, getting him harder with each movement of her fingers. He didn’t see her lean forward but he felt her breath just before he felt her tongue rub against the head of his cock and he groaned, a rough sound that vibrated through his body.

She could feel the noise on her tongue as she licked downward, tasting him, reacquainting herself with the veins and ridges of his flesh. The tip of her tongue rubbed between his balls before she slowly kissed her way back up, wrapping her tongue around his shaft as she moved, slicking his skin. When she got to the top, she lapped at the clear drop of fluid that had appeared and smiled up at him.

She knew he had been watching her. He’d always liked to watch her and she parted her lips and sucked the tip into her mouth. His hands clenched in her hair as she slid her mouth down as far as she could and then slowly sucked her way back up. He was hard against her lips and she let him drop from her mouth. She reached for the condom, pulled it from the wrapper and slid it on.

He shoved his jeans the rest of the way off as she scooted back on the bed and he crawled after her, grabbed the waist of her leggings and pulled them down. “Are you wet for me?”

“Yes.”

He slid his hands up her thighs and dipped under the legs of her panties at each hip. “Wet enough?”

She breathlessly nodded as his fingers slid towards each other.

“I think I’m going to have to check and make sure.” He pulled the panties down her legs and tossed them somewhere. It wasn’t important to him where they landed. What was important was the woman lying naked on the bed in front of him. She still had the faintest scattering of freckles across her shoulders and there was a small tattoo of a sea turtle on her hip that he’d never seen before. His tongue moved over the delicate piece of art and then worked down her hip bone. He ran his hands up her inner thighs, spreading her apart as his mouth moved closer and closer to her core. He kissed as he went, rubbing his chin against her inner thigh, trailing the tip of his nose against the line where her leg met her body, trailing his fingertips over everything but where she most wanted to be touched.

She reached for him, grabbed his hair, lifted her hips. He couldn’t resist the whimper, the soft sound of pleading that he hadn’t heard from her in years but was as familiar as if she had moaned it in his ear the day before. He licked her, over the silken smooth skin of her labia and softly laughed as her fingers tightened in his hair. Another lick, a little more pressure, and she squirmed. He grabbed her hips, held her tight, felt her flesh soft and giving under his fingers. He licked again and again and with each lap of his tongue he pushed further between her folds until, finally, it rubbed softly against her clit.

Willa gasped as her hips spasmed, jerking against his face. He held her tighter as he licked her again, pressing gently inside her at one end and then swirling around her clit at the other.

“Chris! Please! I need you in me,” she pleaded.

He looked up at her from between her thighs and let his tongue slowly swirl over his lips. “I don’t know, Willa. I think I need to keep licking you.”

She sat up and clutched his biceps and tried to pull him but he grabbed her hands before crawling up her body and pressing them against the mattress on either side of her head. He leaned down until his mouth was almost touching hers. His eyes were fixed on hers and she couldn’t even blink as he watched her. She felt his stomach move against hers, his hips brush against the inside of her thighs as he moved closer, and she wrapped her legs around him, pulling him closer with the heels of her feet. He resisted until she stopped pulling and then, when she finally relaxed, she felt him nudge against her entrance.

“Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Yes.”

“Positive?”

“Yes, Chris. I want this. I want  _you_.”

He kept his eyes fixed on hers, pinning her with his gaze as much as he had her hands pressed to the bed, and slowly pushed inside. He wanted to see every flicker of emotion and pleasure cross her face but it was him that ended up closing his eyes. They sank shut as he pressed deeper and deeper into her body. “Oh, ffffuck,” he muttered as he filled her completely and came to a rest. Her ragged breaths flickered against his lips and he opened his eyes to see tears in hers.

His hand flew to her cheek. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

“I’m fine. It just feels so good.” She fought for another shallow breath as a tear rolled down the side of her face and into her hair.

“God, Willa. What has he done to you?” He kissed her softly and she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. Only their mouths and hands moved for several minutes as they kissed with him buried inside her and her legs snug around his waist.

Eventually his hips began to move and she rocked with him, moving together with the ease and pleasure that only comes with being fluent in your lover’s body language. He gradually began to move faster, harder, pulling out farther before thrusting back in. He hitched up a knee, changing the angle at which he was driving into her and felt her clench around him as she cried his name.

Her hands slid across his shoulders as her heel dug into the small of his back. She could barely breathe and when he bit her lip she keened, throwing her head back and pulling her lip from his teeth. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the warm familiar scent of her body as her climax inexorably brought on his.

They held each other for a few minutes without speaking. When Chris got back from getting both of them cold water, she had flung her arm over her face. “Are you okay?”

She moved her arm and smiled blearily at him. “Yeah. It’s just been a while.”

“Twelvish years.”

“No. I meant for me.”

He sat down on the bed and leaned against the headboard. He handed her a glass and she sat up before taking it. “How long? I mean, if you want to talk about it. If you don’t, I understand.”

“Since he found out his test results.”

“Six months?”

She nodded.

“So, he just decided that if he can’t you get pregnant there’s no reason to have sex or something?”

She tilted the glass back and drank almost half the water before she put it back down and stared at it for a while. “He can’t,” she finally whispered as her chin quivered, “he can’t,” she started over. “With me,” she tried again.

Chris set his glass down and pulled her back into his lap. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I hate seeing you hurting like this, though. Has he talked to a doctor or a psychiatrist about it? Get him a little blue pill maybe?”

“He won’t even talk to me about it. And I shouldn’t be talking to you about it. He would never forgive me if he knew. I just…” she sighed and shook her head. “It’s nice to know that it’s not me, you know?” She looked up at Chris instead of the water glass she had been focused on. “It’s nice to know that someone still thinks I’m sexy enough to get an erection around me.”

Chris took the water glass from her and set it next to his. “You are sexy, Willa.” He brushed his thumb over her cheekbone and then along her plump bottom lip. “Sexy and beautiful.” His hand dropped to her shoulder where the other one joined it and they stroked along her collarbone.  “So beautiful, Willa.” He cupped her breasts and pinched her nipples in between his fingers.

Tears prickled behind her eyes and she kissed him to keep them at bay. He clutched the back of her head, not letting her go when she moved to back away. He kept kissing her until she was clinging to him again, until both of them were panting for breath, until he had maneuvered them so she was pressed to the bed underneath him again.

It took them just a moment to get another condom and he was inside her again. “You are so fucking sexy, love. So god damn sexy.” He could feel her nails on his back as he moved within her. The red welts she left behind only strengthened his desire to leave a mark on her, to let her lout of a husband know that someone was giving her what she needed and wanted even if he wasn’t. It wasn’t his place though, and he wouldn’t force Willa into that confrontation. Instead, he just concentrated on giving her the reassurance she needed to face the days and months ahead.

Willa tilted her hips upward, taking him deeper into her body as she matched each of his thrusts. Months of trying to conceive without success had killed any of the joy in her sex life long before they had gotten the test results that had broken both of their hearts. This, all of this, the humid air and the sweaty slippery skin and the sound of his body pounding into hers, the taste of his kisses, the way his hand gripped her breast, all of it combined to make it feel like they were having their first night together again. There was nothing more she wanted in this moment than what he was giving her.

“Is this what you want?”

It was like he was reading her mind. “Yes!”

Another thrust. “Is this what you need, Willa? Is this what he doesn’t give you?”

His words were like thunderclouds breaking over parched soil, soothing away the deep cracks in barren fields and making every living thing lift up its face and rejoice again. “God yes!”

Another thrust, even harder than the last and he felt tremors ripple down her thighs. “Is this what he can’t give you?”

It had been so long. Too long. Six months of feeling like she wasn’t even female anymore, and now this gorgeous man had turned her back into the woman she had forgotten she was capable of being. “Yes! Oh fuck, Chris, yes!” She left perfectly manicured indentations in his deltoids as her body tensed under his.

He sucked two of his fingers for a few seconds and then pressed them gently to her clit.

“Fuck,” she gasped out as he began to rub. She threw her head back and her mouth fell open on a keening cry. Her legs trembled and her stomach went rock hard. “Chris…”

It was a primal plea and he kept rubbing and thrusting, a little harder, a little faster, building on the foundation he had already laid for her. “Come for me, Willa. I’m not going to come in you until you come all over my cock.”

She tried to say something but it wouldn’t come out. Her breath caught and her face contorted for a moment before she wailed. He clamped his mouth over hers, muffling the sound as her body clenched tightly around him, not just her pussy but her arms and her legs, holding him against her. He was stronger than she was and he kept thrusting, driving her onward and upward, prolonging the ripples of sensation he could see dancing over her skin. She was too much to resist though, and it took him just a minute or two more to find his own release. The muscle in his jaw pulsed in time with his final few thrusts and he gritted his teeth, biting back the groan he couldn’t keep from escaping.

He caught his weight on his forearm as he collapsed, rested his forehead on hers until they could both breath again without it hurting, and then rolled over onto his back. She took advantage of him getting up to dispose of the condom to crawl under the blankets and when he returned she curled into his side as he wrapped his arm around her.

He idly stroked her back and waited. It took a few minutes but she finally looked up at him with a guilty expression. There it was. “Go get your book,” he laughed.

She smiled and hopped out of bed and came back a minute later with her Kindle. He had retrieved his book as well and they sat next to each other in bed and read quietly. Finally she closed her Kindle and he put his book aside. He turned off the lights and pulled her into his arms one more time, spooning her and holding her breast.

He woke at some point in the night when she rolled over and they both knew from the first touch that they wanted each other again. He licked her to one orgasm and she rode him to another and they fell asleep again wrapped in arms and legs and the blanket pulled up as high as it would go to shield them from the coming dawn.


	3. Chapter 3

Willa got out of bed before Chris awoke and headed for her own room and got into the shower. She rested her head against the marble wall as the hot water coursed over her, relieving some of the stiffness and washing Chris’s scent off of her skin. It was not so easily eradicated from her mind though. She wasn’t foolish enough to confuse a one-night stand in an expensive hotel room with the day to day minutiae of a marriage, but she didn’t want to go back to her marriage. She and Chris may have been the ones snowed in, but it had been a tropical paradise compared to the frigid wasteland her life had become back home. She was going to have to make a choice soon. Not between Jonathan and Chris, but between her marriage and having a child. She rubbed her thumb against her finger but stopped when she realized her wedding ring wasn’t there. Going home without it would make that decision for her, but she wasn’t that much of a coward. She’d have to remember to get it from the living room before she left, along with her shirt and wherever else the rest of her clothes had ended up.

Chris opened his eyes as Willa shut his bedroom door behind her. He’d been debating making love to her one more time under the pretense that the night wasn’t over until they got out of bed, but this was better. He didn’t regret what they had done, but it needed to stop now before it caused actual problems. He rolled out of bed and made his way into the shower, adjusting the settings and temperature before he stood under the rainfall. He didn’t even try not to think about Willa in the shower at the other end of the suite. She would be soapy and slippery and there would be bubbles clinging to her breasts and the curve of her ass. He couldn’t bring himself to jack off though. Every time he touched himself, he thought of her alone, not just in the other shower, but alone in her life. Not once had she mentioned a friend in the hours they had spent together. A husband, employees of both her and her husband’s businesses, even siblings, but not a single friend.

Willa got dressed for the day in comfortable jeans and a t-shirt and finished packing her bag. When nothing was left except to gather the scattered remnants of last night, she quietly made her way down the hall. Chris was in the living room talking on the phone again so she made her way to his bedroom and picked up her clothes before making her way back to the living room and finding her shirt. She grabbed her wedding ring off the table without looking at him and hurried back to her room. When she’d dinked around enough that it was obvious she was delaying, she pulled her bag out to the main door and left it there with her coat sitting on top of it before making her way back to the living room. Judging by the smell, room service had delivered breakfast.

“I hope you’re hungry.”

“It depends. Did you cook?”

He mock-frowned at her. “I’ve gotten a lot better since high school.”

“I’m pretty sure you couldn’t have gotten worse.”

Chris laughed, knowing she was remembering the same disastrous attempt at cooking her dinner that he was. “You’re safe; it’s room service. I got you bacon and sausage and eggs.”

“And butter for the toast?”

“Real butter for the toast. One last hurrah. I also ordered you a fruit plate so you won’t die of a heart attack on the way to the airport.”

“Thoughtful of you.”

They ate, seated on opposite sides of the table, and by silent agreement didn’t discuss what had happened last night. A few grapes got lobbed at each other. She let him eat all the pumpkin bread. He left all the lemon-blueberry bread for her.

“When did you say your flight was?”

“I’m not sure I ever did. But it’s at noon on United.”

Chris put his mug of coffee down. “Noon on United out of JFK to San Francisco?”

“Yes.”

Chris laughed and picked his coffee back up.

“What’s so funny?”

“Todd booked us on the same flight.”

The smile faded from Willa’s face. “Why are you going to San Francisco?”

“Because I have a meeting there tonight.”

“Oh.” She let out a relieved huff of air. “You travel even more than I do.”

Chris’s eyes narrowed slightly behind his glasses. “Well, this is the last leg for a bit. I’ll be sleeping in my own bed tonight,” he clarified.

She stilled like a deer scenting a hunter. “I thought you lived in Seattle or something.”

“No, that’s Microsoft. I’m based in Palo Alto.”

“Oh.” She picked up her last piece of bacon and took a bite.

Chris watched as she ate the entire strip of bacon without looking at him. “Is something wrong?”

“I just,” she stopped and wiped her hands on the cloth napkin, “I just didn’t realize we lived that close to each other is all.”

“You’re in Santa Cruz, right?”

“That’s where the store is.  We live near Gilroy on the farm.”

He nodded slowly and took another sip of his coffee. “Am I allowed to check out your store next time I’m down that way?” he asked, not looking at her.

“I…I don’t know.” She lifted her mug of tea but then put it down with a rattle. “Why didn’t you tell me we lived that close to each other before we… before last night?”

“I just assumed you knew.”

“Why would I know where you live?”

“You know where Bill Gates lives.”

“I avoid news about you, Chris. I have for years.”

He paused for a few seconds as he processed that information. “Why?” he asked uncertainly.

“Because of Jonathan!”

“Oh. Right. Of course.”

“Did you think it was because I was still mooning over you or something?”

Chris didn’t say anything.

“I’ve moved on, Christopher. I’m not pining–,”she stopped and then started laughing. “I’m not pining for Pine.” She stuck her tongue out at him. “We should get going if we’re not going to miss our flight.”

Chris stood up. “Right.”

“I’m going to brush my teeth and then I’ll be ready.”

“I’ll have a car brought around.”

They met back at the door to the suite. Willa picked up her coat and put it on and then they stood there silently, staring at each other. Their bodies inclined towards each other in this last moment of privacy and then Willa shook herself. “We should go.”

Neither one of them talked as the rode the elevator down to the lobby, as Chris picked up their boarding passes and a waiting package, as they were helped into the waiting car. Willa stared out the window at the passing city, partly because she didn’t know what to say, partly because she was afraid of what she might say if she opened her mouth. Instead of talking to Chris, she called her husband. “Hey, I’m on my way to the airport. I should have called earlier because you’re out in the fields already, even with the time difference. If you don’t hear from me again that means I caught my plane and I’ll see you tonight when I get home. Love you.”

She ended the call and sucked her lips between her teeth and bit them to keep her chin from trembling. Her gaze stayed fixed out the window as she shoved her phone in her purse.

After a few more minutes of silence, Chris gently placed his hand over hers where it rested on the seat between them. She didn’t look at him, but she grabbed ahold of his fingers like a terrified child clinging to a parent.

Willa had her emotions back under control by the time they got to the airport. It was even more chaotic than normal as the airlines struggled to cope with the backlog of travelers. Once they were through security, Chris led her into the VIP lounge so they could have some relative quiet.

As soon as they were seated, she pulled out her Kindle and started reading it. Chris tugged it out of her hands. “Are you regretting last night?” he asked softly.

She shook her head. “It just made it very obvious that I have some hard choices to make when I get home, you know? Like, do I give up on my marriage or do I give up on my hope of having a child? Because we were happy before we started trying to get pregnant. And things started disintegrating with each month and then the test results were sort of just the tipping point where everything went drastically downhill.”

“I don’t envy you your situation.”

She laughed brokenly. “I might envy you yours a little bit. At least the part of yours that gets spa days.”

“I’m sure there are spas in Santa Cruz. Probably even in Gilroy.”

“Yeah, but if you go to a spa in Gilroy you’ll end up with like a garlic facial or something.” She wrinkled her nose at the thought.

Chris laughed and handed her back her Kindle. “I’ll make sure to pull you out of whatever world you’re in when it’s time to board.”

She curled up with her book while Chris looked through the papers that had been mailed to him for his signature. Finally, he tapped her knee. “Let’s go.”

Willa had never flown first class before, but took quickly to the amenities. She and Chris had been seated next to each other in the middle row of first class, and she toasted him with her glass of wine. “This is  _nice._ ” She stroked the soft blanket that was draped over her lap. Chris laughed but otherwise didn’t respond as she tried out the different settings and buttons on everything around her. She didn’t settle down until the pilot announced to expect heavy turbulence on their ascent and sporadically for the first few hours of the flight. Chris watched her excitement drain away like water out of a cracked basin.

“Are you going to be okay?”

“Do they have barf bags in first class or are you supposed to have outgrown that by the time you get to sit up here?”

“There are barf bags, but I’ve got something better.” He opened his carry on and got out a bottle of pills. “Here.”

She held out her hand and he tapped one into her palm. “It’s an Ambien. Take it with the rest of your wine and you’ll sleep through most of the flight.”

“Is this safe?”

“Yeah, I do it when I need to be able to sleep on a flight.”

Willa shrugged and popped the pill in her mouth and washed it down with the wine. It hadn’t kicked in by the time the plane took to the air and she grabbed madly for Chris’s hand when the plane lurched erratically. Chris rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. “You’re going to be fine. You’re safe.” She’d always refused to go to amusement parks with him; this flight must have been a living nightmare for her. He kept repeating that she was safe until the Ambien and the alcohol took effect and she fell asleep. He reclined her chair for her and tucked a pillow under her head and pulled the blanket up so she’d stay warm. Then he took her hand and held it for the next several hours until she woke up as the pilot announced they were starting their descent.

The comfortable silence between them turned strained as they deplaned and walked up the ramp to the gate together. Neither one of them knew how or when to say goodbye. Their brief interlude was almost over, and neither of them wanted to be the one to shatter the illusions they had built around themselves for the last few days.

The monotone voice reminding passengers not to leave luggage unattended was the dreary welcome back to reality. A line of passengers was waiting to board and they had to maneuver their way through the crowd to get to the center of the concourse.

“Excuse me, you’re Chris Pine, aren’t you?”

Chris stopped and nodded at the man in the oxford blue button down and khakis. “I am. And you are?”

“Noah Tyler. I’m the tech editor at  _Wired_  magazine. Do you have a minute that I could ask you a few questions?”

He glanced after Willa who had kept walking. She caught his eye and smiled and continued on her way. He nodded as he watched her go and then turned his attention back to the questioner. “Just a few. I have meetings to be at.”

Willa was grateful for the interloper. It prevented a messy goodbye or awkward words. This way the break was clean and neat and easy. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat to pull it tightly around her and felt something unfamiliar, like paper but heavier, in one of them. She never put things in her coat pockets anymore after having lost one too many important receipts that way and being lectured by her accountant.

With trepidation knotting her stomach, she pulled out the paper. It was an envelope bearing The Four Seasons logo on it. She looked over her shoulder, but she couldn’t see Chris. She’d already made it too far down the concourse. Now her stomach felt like she was flying through turbulence again. What could he have needed to say to her that he couldn’t have said to her face? She opened the envelope and a key fell into her hand. The brass was burnished with use and there were scratch marks around the hole like it had just been worked off of a key ring. She turned her attention to the note.

_I know I said I’m not that kind of guy and I’m not, but I am this kind of guy. If you ever need to get away or need anything – anything at all – here’s a key to my house. I’m gone a lot but feel free to make yourself at home. I’m listing my address, the security code for my house, and my cell # so you have them if you need them._

_Anything, Willa. Anything at all._

Willa tore the hotel letterhead off of the paper before folding the rest of the note around the key. She tucked the small bundle into the pocket of her jeans, tossed the envelope and crumpled paper in the next garbage bin she passed, and kept walking towards baggage claim and long term parking and her husband.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t yell at me! This is just the first story in a set of three stories I have planned for Willa and Chris. They will be back. Probably not next week but the week after.


End file.
